Nacion targets 15% pension market share

Argentine pension fund manager AFJP Nacion plans to double its current 7.2% market share on the back of the good name of its parent company, federally owned bank Banco Nacion, local daily El Cronista quoted fund sources as saying. AFJP Nacion's goal would see it fall in line with the parent's 15% share of Argentine bank deposits, the paper said. The fund manager's strategy to accomplish its ambitious growth plans will be to bank on an expected "flight to quality in the pension system," the sources said. Nacion AFJP has traditionally led the industry in terms of profitability and the country's economic crisis has provoked a migration to state-run companies, which are deemed safer than private operators by a wary public. So far the flight-to-quality phenomena has been more accentuated in the banking sector but Nacion executives expect the trend to spill over into the pension business. Nacion AFJP will also have the advantage of being able to focus completely on its commercial activities as it accepted the pesofication of its guaranteed bonds while its private rivals are heading toward a distracting fight with the government over the status of these bonds. The guaranteed bonds never went into default but were pesofied, which the private pension fund managers have refused to accept. Nacion is Argentina's largest bank both in terms in assets and deposits.